Our Days in Oxford, Home of My People: Days 5 and 6

Oxford is not really the home of my people, not like you would think. My family isn't from there, and I've never been there before. But being in that city was like coming home. From the second I got my first look at the spires and read the lines I had printed out about when C.S. Lewis first saw Oxford, I was in love, in awe, in bliss.

On the first day, we visited the Bodleian Library. It is housed in the original medieval building, books on the shelves in the same order, but no chains holding the books in place like they had until the 1700s. (There were actually complaints that the library was too loud because of all the clinking and rattling.) The library tour was my favorite thing we have done so far because I got to learn all about the founding of Oxford University and about the use of the library in the past. Aaron thought it was gonna be dead boring, and even he loved it!

My next thing to do when I get home is to look at their archives online, find something I can research there in classical or medieval rhetoric, get a grant, and spend some time actually working in that library. It would be AMAZING!

I saw St. Mary the Virgin church, where Thomas Cranmer (among others) was martyred for refusing to be Catholic during the reign of Mary Tudor (who just keeps coming back like that damned cat in the song.) It was also the scene of John Wesley's last Oxford sermon before he got booted for being all Methodisty.

Later that evening, after it got too dark to gawk at beautiful buildings and pretend I am a fellow of some Oxford college in the early 1900s (and that they let women do that), we went in THE MOST AMAZING bookstore in the world. To my mother: It puts Square Books to shame. It was Blackwell's, and though they have other locations in the UK, Oxford was the biggest. They have a huge section for classical texts, in translation and in the original, a huge section of history divided into very specific eras (for instance, a full ceiling-tall shelf on the Anglo-Saxons, including both scholarly and popular titles), 4 full floors of books and the kind of books that you wouldn't find in your run of the mill Barnes and Noble.

I partly enjoyed the bookstore (cause really, it was so interesting), and partly, it made me feel terrible. I had a crisis moment when I realized how frivolous I have been in my reading. I can't believe how much there is to read and how I have frittered away my time. I am going to start on a much more serious reading plan when I get home (not in Marianne Dashwood style, though, as I am going to be reasonable and not get all carried away with plans I cannot carry out). I am going to sign up for the Anglo-Saxon language class that I have been putting off, rejuvenate the Sex Vultures, and read more classics, especially from Greece and Rome. I realized that by age 33 (my age on Jan 3), Jesus had lived and died, been a messiah, and started a religion. I haven't even learned Sanskrit. So I have some work to do.

We spent a second day in Oxford because it was so great. I got up early and took an earlyish train from London by myself to fit in more awe. Aaron joined me later for lunch. Before I met up with him, I toured Bailiol College and Trinity College. I enjoyed the grounds, chapels, and history of both. Oxford colleges are so weird to me. They are so independent of the overarching university and have so much personal character; their isolation within a greater body is fascinating. The tutorial system is also foreign and intriguing to me. I had a chance to study abroad in Oxford as an undergraduate and passed it up, and I regret it deeply. It makes me sad to think of the mistakes that I made because of how little I understood myself back then. I was ON THE PATH to grad school and world domination, but as it turns out, I am more relaxed and a soak-in-the-atmosphere kind of a person. Oxford would have been perfect. I also didn't apply for the Rhodes scholarship (which would have been unlikely), as I was busy getting married and stuff.

Aaron and I had lunch (not Indian food, strangely, since that beloved stuff makes up about 80% of our diet), and then we split up again. Aaron went to an exhibit at the Oxford History of Science Museum on timepieces, astrolabes, and stuff like that, which he liked A LOT. He says that the highlight of the visit was a metric clock where they tried to divide the day into 10 hours with 10 divisions each. It didn't catch on. :)

I went on a walking tour of Oxford that I printed out from a C.S. Lewis fan sight. I saw where he stayed when he first arrived in Oxford, saw the pubs where the Inklings met, and toured Magdalen College where he was a fellow. It was my favorite college so far, by a landslide. The buildings were spectacular, especially the cloisters and the chapel, and the grounds were amazing. I couldn't believe that I was still in Oxford. It was totally quiet, and I was almost completely alone. I walked for miles and miles on the paths that Lewis walked, along the Cherwell River, past the Deer Park, and around Fellow's Garden. Part of the paths are called Addison's Walk, and that walk was the place where Lewis was convinced to convert to Christianity by Tolkien and another Inkling whose name I cannot remember. I walked there for most of the afternoon. In the chapel, I lit a prayer candle (not as a prayer, but as a memorial and a symbol of affection) for Lewis and for all the kings and queens of Narnia from Frank and Helen on down to Tirian and for Reepicheep. Lewis might have rather had a prayer, but I think he would have approved the gesture.

I didn't finish my walking tour because I spent so much time on Addison's walk at Magdalen. I did stop in at a tiny churchyard nearby to hunt out the interesting dead, and I looked at the outside of Merton College where Tolkien was a fellow. I intend to go back on Boxing Day to tour Christ Church College and try to get a look inside Merton. And to visit the bookstore again like I would a religious shrine. :)

I cannot accurately describe to you the feeling Oxford gave me. It was like a religious experience, like coming home after being away many years, like coming to the surface of the water and taking a deep breath just when you had run completely out of air. It was a mixed feeling, half glory, half grief. Glory because a place like that exists and people like me must have made it and might still inhabit it. Grief because the giants of that place, my people, are not easy to spot anymore, if they ever were easy to spot and if there are any left. I felt at home and at the same time horribly lonely. It's the feeling I always have when I read a Matthew Arnold poem: this guy and I are just alike, and he and I will never meet. I can only describe it as sublime.